Hand labellers have been used for years by merchants to apply labels to articles or goods. One such recently improved labeller is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,490,206, and is directed to a complicated and expensive hand-held labeller that prints and applies labels to articles. However, such labeller is manufactured with costly components, significantly limiting the market potential for such device.
There exists a need for improvements that facilitate relatively low cost and portable application of labels dispensed from a backing carrier, or web, onto individual articles such as fruits, vegetables, or consumer articles. Such need is in the nature of an improvement over prior art hand labellers in that the ready application of labels is obtained by delivering labels having desired label information in a lightweight, compact, low-cost and portable device. Instead of relying on a highly complicated, costly, and heavy device, the essential features of the present invention contemplate a relatively simple and lightweight hand-held unit that reduces adhesive gumming of an applicator mechanism, improves label delivery from a carrier web to an article, enhances controlled application of labels from a label applicator, accurately delivers labels with a relatively low cost delivery device, has an improved operating mode that prevents immediately-successive inadvertent label applications, and has an improved applicator comprising a label transfer mechanism that improves label delivery to articles.